Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg – Preview

Having only recently played through the third installment of the Atelier Ryza trilogy, we were rather happy when a new Atelier game already appeared on the horizon. This time, however, we wouldn’t be playing a completely new title in the series but rather a remake of a 25-year-old title. Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg takes us back to the beginning of the Atelier franchise, and we very much enjoyed playing through the first in-game year of the current preview build.

From the moment we booted up the game, we could see that this title is a high-quality remake. The original PS1 graphics made way for polished modern graphics, but the original format remained intact. Unlike the new 3D entries of the series, Atelier Marie Remake retains its original top-down perspective. Unlike the more modern games in the franchise, this one also opts for chibi-like characters rather than the more realistically proportioned anime characters we have seen in games such as Atelier Ryza. The art direction works rather well for this remake, and the dialogue scenes have more detailed character portraits. We only found the lip-syncing very awkward during these dialogue scenes.

The sound design is also great for this remake. You’ll get a new polished soundtrack to listen to, superb voice acting for key dialogues, and of course decent sound effects. If you do yearn for the glory days of the PlayStation 1, then you can still listen to the original soundtrack as well.

The premise of the game is actually quite simple. You’ll be playing as Marie, who seems to be failing all her classes in school. You get one last chance to prove yourself, however, as you are given a store you can manage, where you’ll have to perform alchemy. Over the course of five years, you’ll have to hone your skills and craft an item of such high quality that it impresses your teacher. The overall offset is fun, and we did find ourselves captivated by the game’s general gameplay loop, which consisted of exploring the world around the city to gather materials and battle enemies.

It did take some time to get used to the time constraints as pretty much everything you do in the game will cost you time. Even picking some mushrooms or grabbing a few apples will cost you in-game days. Battling enemies will also make a day pass, and traveling back and forth will once again cost you days. Even crafting will make time go by. It soon became clear that this game will be shorter than most modern games in the series, but that was something we personally didn’t mind.

The game’s combat consists of turn-based battles, and there’s also a limited gear system in play. You cannot really use items outside of combat, and if you haven’t equipped these items prior to venturing out, you’ll have to make do with the items you had equipped beforehand. This felt a bit like a dated design choice, but it did add a bit of planning to the mix. This planning also included having to choose what you’d best spend your money on, as resources are rather scarce during the first year of the game.

Perhaps because Atelier Marie is still a product of its time, some aspects do feel a bit dated. We are not talking about the time constraints, which were a popular item in older games, but more about some of the inventory systems and the game’s overall lack of content. Don’t get us wrong, there is enough to do in the game, but you’ll be doing the same thing over and over to improve your skills and unlock new crafting recipes. It’s also clear that this is a fairly small game, as the environments you find yourself in are tiny and even the central hub is very limited in scope. Nonetheless, this does make for a fun title that is easy to play on the go, if you happen to pick up the Switch version.

Conclusion

While our preview was limited to the first year of in-game time of Atelier Marie Remake, we soon found the game to have a very soothing effect on us. Even though we had to keep in mind the time constraints and we still had to make quite a few decisions, we very much enjoyed the relaxing grind of the game, as well as its host of colorful characters. In some ways this game may be a bit limited when looking at more modern iterations of the series, but even so, this one serves well as a bite-sized Atelier experience in-between bigger titles. We are very much looking forward to Atelier Marie Remake’s full release.

Ibuki

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Aspiring ninja.

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